


Selfish

by GallicGalaxy



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: I'm really tired I'll add better tags later, Implied Caesar/Joshua Graham, M/M, Mentioned Joshua Graham, Mild Sexual Content, This actually borders on being explicitly sexual, what is canon continuity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 13:47:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7054273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallicGalaxy/pseuds/GallicGalaxy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Well, his Centurion wanted him crucified for disobedience. So I made him a Frumentarii."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Selfish

**Author's Note:**

> I have a recurring problem where I stay up too late because I really want to finish a fic and end up posting it in a tired haze like "what is this"  
> What is this? That's a good question. What I do know is that Vulpes and Caesar have mildly explicit sex and that's enough to deter most people  
> I got weirdly fixated on Caesar's line about making Vulpes a frumentarius when his Centurion wanted him like crucified I think, and somewhere in my head I was like "Hey that'd make a great fic"  
> And a lot of headcanons about Vulpes  
> And I don't even know what the ending  
> I'm very tired

 He smiled just like Joshua.

Joshua, who would lose that name to the power of his identity. This boy smiled just like Joshua.

It seemed strange and unfitting to call him a 'boy', though. He was young, yes, and in comparison to Caesar he could indeed have been called a boy, but just because he was young did not mean he was vulnerable.

Caesar told himself that, at least.

But in this case, it seemed true enough to be a crutch. The boy had Joshua's smile, that smile which existed only at the corners of its wearer's mouth, always looking stifled in nature. A smile that never truly progressed beyond a smirk, sometimes accompanied by an unreadable glance downward. A smile that could've had a thousand things behind it, that could've been generated by almost any emotion.

It was a remorseless smile.

This boy didn't regret a single damned thing he'd done. His Centurion wanted him executed, and he was there on his knees, with a blade lifting his head, smiling up at Caesar himself. A naughty, cocky smirk.

Fearless. Caesar could respect that.

Caesar was the emperor of self-justification. This boy wasn't vulnerable, just look at the way he smiled haughtily at powers far greater than him. Caesar respected his fearlessness, his confidence. That was why he made such a decision. There was no longing at work – not a lonely kind of longing that missed what it couldn't have, not a warm kind of longing that desired only the touch of bare skin.

Lies, lies. Pillars of salt, pillars of sand.

Vulpes. That was his name. Vulpes Inculta. An apt name; there was no more appropriate creature than the fox to have its name assigned to this boy.

He must have known he was lucky. If Caesar hadn't been there, in the right place at the right time, he would've been dead. And if he hadn't struck the right chord, smiled in just the right way at such a precisely weak moment, he would've been dead.

But he wasn't. And yet he still acted like it didn't matter, like death would've been no more than a petty inconvenience to step over. Like he didn't care.

It was infuriating, and no doubt intentional. He was in no position to bargain for anything, but he behaved as if he was the center of the universe. He should've been _grateful_ , at the very least, or even relieved. And maybe he was; it was likely indeed that the gratitude and relief were present in some form, but in that case, he was an expert at hiding his emotions. Born to be a frumentarius.

Vulpes was aware of how lovely he was. He _must_ have been. He knew, with his long, sun-kissed legs, his lean, boyish figure, his narrow, mischievous eyes, and his soft-looking lips. He was using it to his advantage.

Caesar remembered clearly when he spoke to Vulpes after having promoted his rank. Vulpes had gone from raised for the slaughter to a highly trusted position, and nothing had changed about the way he carried himself. Maybe they were true, all the things people said about acting like you were important. That had been all Vulpes needed to do, after all.

When Caesar looked at him, Vulpes contorted his lips into that stifled smirk, a hint of a smile so small that it must have taken great effort to execute.

Caesar couldn't remember what Vulpes said to him. Presumably some cryptic murmurs subtly flavored with gratitude for such a great favor as being removed him from a sentence of crucifixion to the important rank of a frumentarius. But he remembered Vulpes' voice, he remembered it vividly. It was the sound of some soft pretty articles, like flower petals, fluttering on a wind gentler than those that ever graced the Mojave wasteland. It wasn't a voice that sounded like it belong in the Legion – it was a sweet, sultry voice, the sound of satin sheets, poker chips rolling quietly on their sides, mellow wine.

Vulpes could tell that Caesar wanted him. He tilted his head alluringly, cocked his chin slightly as though to appear tantalizingly arrogant. He spoke softly and seductively, brushed his fingertips along the edge of his skirt, and shifted his slender legs. He was an incorrigible flirt; Caesar couldn't help but smile at him.

Maybe he forgot what Vulpes said because he was focusing more on his beauty than whatever he was saying. Clear up until one phrase. One little sentence.

Vulpes tilted his head, and parted his thin lips, and murmured, “I don't know how I could express my gratitude.” He said it with no tether to emotion, no audible feeling which had generated this statement. With no conviction.

And the only thing Caesar managed to say was, “However you can think to.” With a surprising amount of solid confidence. Vulpes chuckled in response to this, a tiny little noise, an indication that he knew what Caesar was thinking, and maybe he agreed, maybe he didn't. Vulpes was an elusive, mysterious creature.

He folded his lean arms across his chest, and then bounced it back at Caesar with, “What would you ask of me, provided no expression of gratitude is too great?”

And then the next part was cloudy, too. But somehow they got, through physical or linguistic power, into bed together. Caesar was possessed of a real bed, with a real mattress, a comfortable place to lie. Lavish luxury among Legionaries.

Vulpes was beautiful. He could have executed the lowest of actions with a grace that would make nature itself envious, especially now that Mother Nature had been ravaged and wrought barren by the hands of men. Caesar wanted the world to see Vulpes as we was – so splendid, so deft in all his motions, so playful and virile. No living thing could compare.

He smelled like dust, like the wasteland, but with just a tinge of some sort of smoky odor clinging to it. The smokiness dissipated when he took off his clothes – whatever it was, it was unnatural, soaked into the fabric of his underclothes. But that was a mystery for another time.

Vulpes had so many subtle gestures that Caesar adored. When he was sitting or lying down he would raise his arms above his head, and then sigh a little from the pleasure of comfort. That one particular series of motions highlighted everything that was beautiful about Vulpes' boyish figure – the lean musculature of his arms, the tightness of his skin over his ribs, the way his chest fluttered as he breathed, the length of his figure.

In another gesture, one Caesar had witnessed already, Vulpes would turn his head, averting his gaze, and smirk at nothing, at some imaginary object below him. God, even the way his lips curved was attractive. Caesar didn't pass up very many chances to kiss them. Vulpes would often purr happily into Caesar's unexpected kisses, enjoying them no matter what. Caesar would add kisses to Vulpes' jaw, his neck, his collarbones. And Vulpes would sink his slender fingers through the fur on Caesar's mantle and smile a pleasured smile.

Vulpes' body was beautiful. Caesar had noted this already, many a time, but Vulpes' nakedness was even more beautiful. His body slender, elegant, and toned. He was worth all the desire, and all the lust was justified.

He was pleased, or at least he pretended to be. His sexuality seemed to pulse from him, swirl around his body like dust on swirling gusts of air. He would alternate between twisting around like a gecko in the water, as if he wanted Caesar to wear him, and letting himself become a ragdoll in Caesar's arms.

His passion was delicious. It was wild, vibrant, like gasoline on the fire of an ego like Caesar's. Made him feel younger, more desirable. Unnecessarily more arrogant. Caesar was much more vulnerable than he ever let on. His moments of weakness were surprisingly frequent. But as long as other people believed that he was never weak, or at least were too devout to care, it didn't matter. It only mattered at times like this.

Vulpes could have been faking it. At the time, Caesar couldn't have cared less. Vulpes was doing his job – his new job, at least – being whatever he needed to be for however long it took. The kind of traits one would also desire for a prostitute.

But Vulpes was a higher creature than that. Stronger. Freer. More honest.

Or, at least, so it was written in the holy book of self-justification.

Even if Vulpes was faking it, he did come. Just as gloriously as he did anything else. He voiced his pleasure with all the power his desert-scarred lungs could muster, arched his back up off the silky sheets, knitted them up in-between his fingers. His breaths sounded like howls, almost, and Caesar closed his eyes to their melody.

And then he went limp again, like a doll, his harsh panting passing like bitter water over his sensuous lips. He was almost as magnificent like that as he was when he came.

The afterglow was like cool white sunlight. Vulpes ran his hands through his hair, sighing in cathartic relief. Caesar kissed him again, and again; the force of Vulpes' beauty was like the eternal pull of gravity.

Vulpes was still there when Caesar woke up. Caesar didn't know why he was surprised.

The first thing he saw were Vulpes' shoulder blades, hunched like night stalkers waiting to pounce out from under his skin. He traced the flawless curve of Vulpes' spine, clear down to where Caesar's blanket covered it at his hips. Blankets in the desert were only tools of comfort.

The smoky smell had magnified. It was now undeniably cigarette smoke. It might even have been flavored cigarette smoke, which was distinctly unusual. Flavored cigarettes were the kind of thing sold in casinos out of humor. Very rare, and very odd to favor.

The cigarette smell meant a few things - mainly that Vulpes had already been up, probably recently, and was likely not as fast asleep as he was making himself out to be. And, in addition, that he was adept at either concealing or extorting cigarettes, and therefore likely other articles as well. It also meant that Caesar would have to break him of it, but he knew all too well that the worse a habit was, the harder it was to break. Especially for someone who acted out for attention.

He most likely wasn't even asleep. But he looked so cute, so lovely when he was sleeping. Or pretending to be asleep. He looked vulnerable. Fragile. Delicate, almost. Almost enough to make Caesar feel a twinge of guilt.

He'd used his status to take advantage of Vulpes' vulnerable position – his weakness, his youth, his unwanted behaviors. He'd made a powerful choice based on a series of assumptions and petty urges. He'd taken this boy when he was at his weakest, when Vulpes couldn't run the risk of choice, and justified all of it with assumptions once more. In the back of Caesar's mind was the fear – though he wouldn't have used that word – that Vulpes was a little too good at pretending to be whatever he needed to be.

Or maybe, maybe a young Legionary had misbehaved for attention, narcissistically certain that he wouldn't be punished, and had intentionally tried to plea to the weaknesses of a foolish old man who didn't know that he missed something he'd destroyed. Maybe Vulpes had manipulated Caesar, the baffled king, because Vulpes knew that he was desirable, knew he was alluring, and knew how to use it to his advantage. He'd stepped over the old fool's hollow heart and right into a position of status, cemented by his impenetrable ability to lead people like Caesar on. He wasn't going anywhere any time soon.

One way or another, the crux of it all was that Vulpes knew he was desirable. And as he lay there, much more awake than he'd let on, Vulpes felt Caesar's hand run down his back, over his delicate bare skin, and he shivered a little when he recalled how he'd learned that he was desirable.


End file.
